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Statistics: Thousand Suns

Core Game Ratings

Rating: 5.95 / Ranking: 1417

These ratings are based on 7 ratings with 2.13 average weight and 2 reviews.

This is compared to an index-wide 3.64 average ratings and 1.98 average weight.

This rating earns a low level of trust because of its low level of input.

Ratings + Reviews:

26%

22%

39%

Index Ratings Only:

13%

46%

27%

RPGnet Reviews Only:

50%

Core Game Comments

All User Comments

Rating	User	Comments
9 / 10	Dropkicker	The revised version is fantastic, I'm painfully close to giving it a 10.
8 / 10	mechascorpio	James Maliszewski's "Thousand Suns" RPG is a game for which I've been waiting a long time, and I didn't even realize it. Some of my passions as a teenager were the novels of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper and Pournelle/Niven, and; roleplaying games such as "Traveller" (for sci-fi) and Steve Jackson's "The Fantasy Trip" (a very accessible alternative at the time to D&D). At the time, Traveller seemed like a good way to mix the RPG experience with the grand Imperial Space Navies of the books I loved, but for some reason it never completely clicked for me. Too much number crunching, and the atmosphere of the game didn't feel right unless you were playing in the Imperium setting. SPI's "Universe" could have been a contender, but it was a little too dry with virtually no atmosphere, and SPI died soon after in any case. For me, it seemed that nearly 30 years passed with no real hope of finding the right SF RPG. "Thousand Suns" has changed all that. It's like they got into my head! The rules, using their own 12° game mechanics (as opposed to something like D20) are lightweight and very accessible. It's extremely easy to quickly create some characters with great depth and background. Where "Thousand Suns" really shines, though, is how it handles the setting of the game. In some ways it's very minimal, allowing the GM to superimpose nearly any "Imperial SF" style setting (established or their own) into the game. At the same time, it's not generic. Maliszewski gives the reader just enough structure and resources that the game is definitely geared toward establishing the atmosphere I was looking for. He does define a "Meta Setting" with its own history, organizations, aliens and so on (a good one at that, sort of a "Best of All Worlds" approach), but the reader won't feel compelled to use it word for word. It's simply a great set of resources. As I said, Character Creation is fast and novel, gameplay is as well. The rules aren't exceptionally crunchy, definitely "role" as opposed to "roll". The only thing that feels a little too light are guidelines and rules for World Creation and Starship Construction. Admittedly, I bring my Traveller expectations to this game, so I was looking for a little more depth in these sections; at least on par with the detail and options made available for Characters. The good news is that some of this should be remedied very soon by Rogue Games' follow-up books, "Pilot's Guide to the Core Worlds" and "Fighting Ships of the Thousand Suns". They should flesh out the details a little deeper. Nevertheless, what's there now is enough, so I don't want to imply that "Thousand Suns" isn't a complete game. A few small criticisms I must mention. The book really needed better reference sections. The Table of Contents is chapter titles only, and there is no Index. Also, the editing should have been a little tighter. Section and Topic headers are hard to distinguish, and there are a small number of typos and omissions that require an errata. Fortunately, Rogue Games seems to be doing a bang-up job building an online user community around the game, so these things are being addressed as well. All in all, a great game with even greater potential. I've purchased both the book and an electronic copy, and I'm already hard at work building my own Meta Setting. Can't wait to see what comes next from these guys!
8 / 10	vertigo25	Thousand suns is an excellent game, mechanically. The book suffers from poor editing, however. Typos and formatting errors abound, and there's even a few places where stats that don't exist are referenced and examples don't add up. My rating is for the game as a whole, however.

Core Game Reviews

All RPGnet Reviews

[ Link Reviews ]

Rating	User	Summary
2 + 2	C.W.Richeson	Thousand Suns. Thousand Suns promises Imperial science fiction support and a simple rules system. [ Read Review ]
4 + 5	Sensei	Thousand Suns. More suns than you can shake a plasma sword at! More fun than a drunken Klingon on a tilt-a-whirl! More space goodness than a Buck Rogers TV marathon! [ Read Review ]